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gender relations

What do you feel when you wake up one fine morning, pick up the news­paper and find a photo on the front page of burqa-clad women picketing infavour of discriminatory, dis­torted, so-called Islamic laws?

Your first reaction is to bang your head against the wall (in case you’re really worked up on the issue). As you don’t intend to do literally anything of the kind, you let the moment pass.

Why can’t we have men friends the way we have women friends? A volatile question indeed, that of­ten puzzles a friend of mine. She thinks women can have friendship with men.

What she means by friend­ship is a relationship based on mutual understanding and care and sharing of interests and ideas — minus motive, sans desire. Just like a rela­tionship that exists between two female friends.